ROSE, a new film from Cohen Media Group, opens across the country. This is a French film with English subtitles that deals effectively and tenderly with the plight of a woman in a long-term and happy marriage who suddenly finds herself on her own in a world that she does not understand.
Rose is the story of an intimate revolution, that of a 78-year- old woman who, after losing her beloved husband, discovers herself and realizes that she is not just a mother, a grandmother, and a widow, but that she is also a woman, and that she has the right to enjoy and to desire for as long as she can.
This film is to be commended for the sensitivity with which it reveals the confusion and angst of that both Rose and her three adult children experience as they try to understand how to deal with their new situation. The children try to be available to their mother who they no longer understand. The audience can observer the way the family is forced to confront what it means to redefine oneself later in life.
In addition to co-writing and directing this film, Aurelie-Saada wrote the music. From an interview Saada shares that a dinner guest was the inspiration for the film, “Marceline Lori- dan-Ivens (a survivor of the camps who was on the same convoy to Auschwitz as Simone Veil, the magnificent author). Marceline was a survivor in every sense of the word: she was more than alive, she woke the dead. She had a cheekiness, a panache, a sensuality, and an extraordinary appetite for life.” Saada wanted “Rose to be older because it allowed me to follow through with my idea that desire is always present in life, until the very end, and that it is terrible to make women’s desire invisible, stifled or taboo.”
Saada continues, “I grew up in a Tunisian Jewish family, noisy, joyful and absolutely non-religious. It was important for me to put my first film in this setting because I didn’t want to cheat. I wanted this film to resemble me and not to borrow anything from cultures that I didn’t completely understand. Also, Judaism is often caricatured in French cinema. I wanted to show its more complex face, far from the clichés. But in most cases, it remains a costume because the subject’s heart is not there. This film may be imbued with Jewish culture, but a friend of mine, a Christian, told me a while ago: ‘It’s crazy, it’s like home.’ I believe that we humans are much more alike than we imagine.”
About writing the music, Saada comments, “I had fun singing on this soundtrack in Hebrew, Arabic, Yiddish and Italian, the languages of my ancestors. And as I always invite my family in everything I do: my daughter Shalom, 12 years old at the time of the recording, also composed one of the themes… I am immensely proud of this, as you can imagine! “
And how did the film impact Saada? “It was like giving birth to a new child. It is, perhaps, one of my most beautiful love stories. Daring to reinvent yourself is like magic.”
The cast is perfectly selected. Françoise Fabian as Rose is dazzling, completely convincing and a joy to watch. Aure Atika as Sarah,Grégory Montel asthe doctor, Pierreand Damien Chapelle as tall, handsome Leon are a convincing group of siblings.
Rose is opening throughout the country. See it. You will be glad you did.
DIRECTED BY Aurélie Saada
WRITTEN BY Aurélie Saada and Yaël Langmann
STARRING Françoise Fabian, Aure Atika, Grégory Montel, Damien Chapelle, Pascal Elbé
PRODUCED BY Priscilla Bertin, Judith Nora, Elsa Rodde
MUSIC BY Aurélie Saada
CINEMATOGRAPHY BY Martin De Chabaneix
EDITED BY Françis Vesin
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